Package holiday prices rise 14.3% in Portugal

Anyone booking a package holiday in Portugal this August was likely to have noticed a higher price than a year ago. New Eurostat figures show that package holiday prices rose 14.3% compared with August 2025, one of the sharpest increases in the European Union.

By Tereza Pedro, in News · 29 Sep 2026, 10:03 · 0 Comments

Only Belgium recorded a larger rise, at 16.2%. Across the EU, the average increase was 3.2%, meaning prices in Portugal rose by more than four times the European average. Sweden, Lithuania and Romania also recorded double-digit increases, while prices fell in four countries, including neighbouring Spain.

A package holiday can include travel, accommodation, meals and other services sold together. The figures measure the price when the holiday was bought, rather than when the trip took place. So the August result does not necessarily refer only to holidays enjoyed during the summer.

The increase in Portugal was not confined to August. As reported by ECO, package holiday prices were 11.7% higher than a year earlier in June and 15.2% higher in July. The equivalent EU increases were 4.3% and 4.6%.

Flight prices followed a different pattern. Across the EU, airfares fell by 0.4% in August compared with the same month last year. Portugal went in the opposite direction, with a 1% rise. That was much smaller than the increase recorded for package holidays, but it meant travellers buying flights in Portugal did not see the slight drop shown in the EU-wide figures.

The airfares have also moved around considerably this year. In Portugal, they were 14% higher in June than a year earlier, dipped by 0.2% in July and then rose again in August, ECO reported.

For travellers, the latest figures show why the cost of a holiday can feel different from the headline figures for flights alone. Even in a month when airfares edged down across Europe, the price of buying a complete holiday package rose sharply in Portugal.